As we discussed a few weeks ago, I think the heart of this game is about the emotions and fantasies that we (many cultures) associate with clouds. It seems your game play is currently to collect clouds in a random order. This lends itself to the "clean the air" concept you described. However, I'm not sure asthma and cloud cleaning is such a good fit. Here are a couple other ideas I had this morning:

Yun wants to collect all the clouds to make the largest cloud in the sky. He has to do this because the town he comes from has had a drought for the entire year and can't produce crops to fee the families. It is his mission to collect the clouds and make it rain over his town's crops. OR...

Yun is a wise old person that needs to teach children the art of "cloud-telling." Each cloud is a component of a story that is assembled by catching/collecting them in a particular order. Some clouds are characters that can be good or bad. Other clouds are actions or obstacles. However, this isn't so easy because clouds frequently change shape and identity.

Jenova,

I don't think the blog is a good forum for our game. WE don't need others opinions at this point in the production, outside of the internal team and the executive producers. WE should not post our work until it is presentable. While I very much like you sketch and ideas, I would prefer to keep them internal, like any professional production. If I am going to produce this you need to run all communications by me before releasing them to the general public. This production is not a democracy.
That said, thanks to Andrew for his ideas.

It seems to me that it is your responsibility as a student here to share your ideas and thoughts about your projects in this space. Of course everyone has their own personal ideas about any concept put up on this page, but I enjoy seeing the art on this page and hearing brainstorming. That's what this is all about. And this project may be YOUR projet, but you are also being funded to do it by the university, and I think it would be a mistake to sell everyone else here out by not letting us learn a bit from your own experiences, and being able to contribute ideas, etc. You don't have to use them, of course -- this is your project. But I think that closing off your production from this space is a big mistake. There are a lot of smart, creative people here.

Our Team and this production are most important to me. This blog and public brainstorming are not. I would be happy to have input at milestones and during testing, but right now it is not appropriate. I will run this production in a professional manner, not an academic one. Just like Dyadin, we will have a site for everyone to view the progress of our game as it moves through production, but alas this is a production and not an open forum. If you're that interested, you are more than welcome to make inquiries into joining the team. Thanks for your input.

Andrew, after the end of the semester, I changed the game play a little bit. Instead of collecting huge cloud. You can drop cloud, and shape them. And we introduce a new concept of good clouds and bad clouds. Once you touch any bad clouds, they will turn to good. It's kind of purifying which I think is matching to the air cleanning theme.

Creating rain to save crops is definitely gonna be there. And similar to your second idea, Yun the little boy is trying to convince his ward mate Fei that the clouds there is more like a chicken instead of bird. So he day dreaming there and shape the cloud more like a chicken. Anyway, thank you very much. I like your ideas, feel free to comment at anytime, though we may not use it.

Sorry to intrude. SEDinehart, if you want to be professional then you can start by keeping criticisms of your teammates private as well.

JENOVA, I will not be hurt if you don’t use my ideas; you are welcome to use them, or discard them, as you wish.

ERIN, I believe you are misunderstanding the context of my comments to Jenova. My comments and ideas (above) were made as a continuation of a previous conversation Jenova and I had during our 534 final presentations (the class that you missed).

CLOUD TEAM, Congratulations on winning the prestigious Games Innovations Grant! I’m happy to contribute in a public and/or private forum.

I would like to know what the team decides in regards to professional v academic production. I don't see how you can claim to run a professional production that is funded by and for a university, but I think this discussion is a really interesting one. The USC Game Design Community, who primarily awarded the grant(right?), has a mission of creating an academic space in which to experiment and explore game design, so it seems that the team with the grant would want to keep that in mind. But this is the first time we're doing this, so like I said before, I'm interested to see how this will turn out.

Andrew, I wouldn't call an unscheduled post- semester mishap class. I inquired with you, if you recall, what the details of that day where, but alas I had no response from you.

You comments are all welcome, again I just don't think this is the proper forum for discussion of our production. I know everyone in this department has their own wealth of talents and opinions, and by no means to I intend to belittle them. I realize now that Jenova was asked to make this post, and did so to communicate with the Cloud team. Again I just feel it premature.

Our progress on the game will be open and viewable, and being that you are a respected member of this division your comments and suggestions are welcome.

I have since spoken to Jenova, and he understands my concerns. Thank you all for your interest and time. As we move through production you comments are welcome, sorry for any misunderstanding.

Hello all,

The whole blog process is still one I am getting used too. Your comments, suggestions and questions are welcome at any time, on the blog or otherwise.

As a token of how much I really need your input, we the Cloud Team will be holding an open house every other week in the EA Game Innovation Lab. Anyone within the Division, School or University will be invited to come and provide suggestions and feedback on our production and the project.

Again sorry for the strife, best of wishes and happy holidays.